


Entangled

by pencilguin



Series: The Other Mes Live With What They've Got [4]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, M/M, fish mer!Hugh and octopus mer!Paul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 06:20:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19420228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pencilguin/pseuds/pencilguin
Summary: Some sleepy underwater cuddles.





	Entangled

**Author's Note:**

> Just some snuggling with no setup, born from Mermay talk on Discord. Unbeta’d, so sorry for any mistakes.  
> I want octopus hugs now.

Huddled together in Paul’s cave they had managed to find some rest. The place was quiet, actually serene, with the faint glow of the bioluminescent organisms living on the cave walls reflected and refracted in the water around them in a variety of colors. The draft of the water current here inside the cave was barely noticeable, despite the storm that was undoubtedly still raging near the surface, yet still Paul had wrapped the majority of his limbs around Hugh’s body as if not to be pulled away. Hugh was aware of the warmth they shared at each point of contact; there was something deeply comforting about it.

Curled against his back, with his face buried in the nape of Hugh’s neck, he didn’t hear Paul’s soft snores so much as he felt them vibrating through his body. The steady breaths here in the calm water confirmed that he was as good as recovered from his injuries by now. His humanoid arms were wrapped firmly around Hugh’s middle, while the majority of his other limbs had tangled around Hugh’s body to varying extents as well; all the while wiggling and curling and uncurling in constant, fluid motions like they always did. One of them unconsciously tickled against the tip of Hugh’s tail on occasion.

He took deep, steady breaths himself as he surveyed his situation. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t touched before, of course, but there had never been this level of comfortable intimacy to it. Sometimes he felt the texture of Paul’s skin shift minutely, noticed the way his muscles tensed and relaxed against him, and he wondered if Paul was dreaming. He wasn’t sure what exactly he had expected cuddling with Paul to feel like, but it had turned out to be much softer and more pleasant and more _right_ than he could ever have imagined. The hold of his arms had a comforting weight and firmness, yet their embrace was light as the sea current around them, his suckers not sticky or painful in the slightest against Hugh’s scales, not even the smaller and more tender ones. Although, admittedly, the constant wiggling and shifting was still a little distracting and it made Hugh’s skin tingle, and he wasn’t sure if he could get used enough to it to fall asleep himself.

He thought of what some of the other people in his village had said when he told them he’d found an injured octo-folk and was trying to help him. How they’d told him to stay away and not to get involved. _These octopode folks, they’re not like us, Hugh. They have no culture like we do; they’re savages. You can’t communicate or reason with them. It’s best to stay out of their affairs so they’ll stay out of ours. Don’t you know the tales? They’re dangerous and ill-tempered and they’ll violate you with their tentacles and then probably eat you. We can’t let them near our village._

 _They’re not tentacles, they’re arms_ , the memory of Paul’s voice huffed in Hugh’s mind. Nothing the village elders had told him turned out to be true about Paul. He had never behaved violently in any way, other than in self-defense when absolutely necessary—not even during their first meeting when he was injured and scared. If anything, he was a little grumpy sometimes, but Hugh had quickly discovered the wealth of deep and complex emotions under his cold exterior. He also was, clearly, highly intelligent, and they had managed to establish communication surprisingly quickly once they’d figured out the main differences in their dialects. In fact, although he hated to be mean, Hugh had no doubt that Paul was much smarter than the majority of the merfolk in Hugh’s village, and a good portion of those outside of it. On top of that, the glimpses he had caught so far of Paul’s culture were nothing but fascinating, though vastly different from his own, and he couldn’t wait to learn everything about it. While Hugh was a healer by profession and by nature, different cultures and histories and ways of living were an interest that had always been close to his heart.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the skin on Paul’s arms change color every now and then, solidifying his suspicion that he must be in the middle of a dream. Hugh smiled, and wished for it to be a nice one. The storm up in the distance was little more than a constant, deep rumble in a back corner of his perception, and together with the closeness and intimacy of the moment it was beginning to make him sleepy, until he drifted off into a restful slumber after all.


End file.
